This article reports the death of 2nd Lt. Wallace Eugene Rock who took off from Beaulieu Airfield, known as USAAF Station 408. If you are a member of Wallace’s family and would like me to edit or remove this report, please do contact me.
The reports on this website are intended to keep the memories alive of the brave men and women who served at Beaulieu both during the war and in the immediate post-war period. Some gave their life in the process.
We don’t want these people to be forgotten. Any content on here has been written with the best intentions, and with the utmost respect of those who gave their lives.
2nd Lt. Wallace Eugene Rock Crash on 22 June 1944
Wallace Eugene Rock was born on April 6, 1924, in Long Island, New York. He was brought up in DePeyster and graduated from Heuvelton High School in 1942, earning seven varsity letters and participating in band, orchestra and chorus.
By 1944 he was with the “Hell Hawks”. This was the nickname given to the 365th Fighter Group who had arrived in England to fly from Gosfield in Essex, before moving to RAF Beaulieu in Hampshire in March 1944. After arriving in Hampshire, the Hell Hawks underwent intensive training to prepare them for D-Day.
On June 22, 1944, 2nd Lt. Wallace Eugene Rock, piloting his P-47 Thunderbolt (serial number 42-76455) of the 386th Fighter Squadron, 365th Fighter Group, 9th US Army Air Force, took off from USAAF Station 408 (Beaulieu Airfield).
His squadron were tasked with performing a ground support mission near Cherbourg in France. At 1420 they were intercepted by the Luftwaffe and Rock’s squadron was attacked by Messerschmitt Bf 109s in the Bricquebec area. During the intense air battle Rock’s P-47 Thunderbolt was struck and crashed into the marshes of Marchésieux. He was just twenty years old and was subsequently declared “Missing in Action” (MIA), having disappeared during combat.
The Ogdensburg Journal reported Rock missing on July 11, 1944.
“Lt. Wallace Rock of the 9th Army Air Force is listed as missing in action in a flight over France on June 22, it was revealed in a telegram received Saturday morning by his mother, Mrs. Leta Rock of DePeyster. According to letters sent to his family recently, “Bud”, as Lieutenant Rock is known in his community, participated in the D-Day invasion and had flown several missions since then. He is a nephew of Herbert N. Holland, supervisor of the town of DePeyster.”
In 1956 his name was permanently engraved into the “Walls of the Missing” at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. The semi-circular gardens bear the names of 1,557 servicemen declared missing in action in Normandy.
For the next forty nine years from the date he was shot down, Wallace remained missing. However, in 1993, a French butcher whose hobby was unearthing aviation crash sites in France, finally found him. Rock’s remains and aircraft were discovered in marshland near La Maturie in Marchésieux. It took a further three years for him to be formally identified by a US Army forensics laboratory. He was finally repatriated to the United States and buried with full military honours at Hillcrest Cemetery, Heuvelton, St. Lawrence County, New York.
The Watertown Daily Times reported Rock’s funeral on May 21, 1997.
More than a half-century has passed since Lt. Wallace E. Rock was killed in World War II. On Tuesday, the Army Air Corps lieutenant finally got the burial he deserved. Members of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum took part in a graveside service for the Heuvelton Central School graduate known as “Bud.” The service took place, with full military honors, at the Rock family plot in Hillcrest Cemetery.
An army chaplain Tuesday praised Lt. Rock and all men and women who died in action.
“He reminds us of the cost of war and the debt we owe to those who laid down their lives,” Capt. Steven C. Hokana, a Lutheran minister, said of Lt. Rock. “Let us not forget those who died in foreign lands for freedom.”
As Capt. Hokana read from the Bible and gave his sermon, seven 10th Division soldiers stood at attention several yards away – one hand behind their backs, the other holding an M-16 rifle. When the captain finished speaking, they fired a 21-gun salute. A soldier slowly played Taps while veterans and soldiers saluted the U.S. flag.
The flag was presented to Lt. Rock’s sister, Marjorie J. Rock, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. Ms. Rock waited for this moment for more than three years ever since January 1994 when she received a letter from the Frenchman who found Lt. Rock’s plane and remains.
His parents never got to know that their son’s body was finally found. His father, Wallace Rock, died in 1970, and his mother, Leta Rock, died in 1988.
As a result of Rock no longer being missing, a rosette was inscribed next to his name on the wall at the Normandy American Cemetery to mark that he now rests in a known gravesite.
There is also a memorial to Rock in Normandy. The Wallace E. Rock memorial was inaugurated on June 7th, 1998, by his sister, Marjorie Rock. Included in the memorial are pieces of the Rock’s P-47 wreck. The memorial’s address is 50190 Marchésieux, France (view on Google Maps
).
17 Hell Hawks died in action flying from Beaulieu Airfield
During their time at Beaulieu, seventeen young men were killed. In 2024 I created a memorial video to those men, whilst walking on the remains of the airfield.